The Whistling Exploration
by BlackKittee
Summary: Whistling is a warning worthy offence.


**A one-shot that wouldn't leave me alone. **

Penny still wasn't sure how it had happened. One moment, Sheldon was staring at her with a look on his face that was both fear and an anger she's never seen before. The next, he had stormed out of her apartment, rushed across the hall, through his own apartment and into his room, slamming the door closed. And if she wasn't mistaken, she had seen tears.

Carefully, Penny went after him. She knew that she had crossed a line, but had no idea why that line had been there. All she had done was whistle along with a song she liked on the radio, because it helped her clean. She hated cleaning and has asked Sheldon for help, because he liked doing it…

Oh God, she had whistled…

This was a warning worthy offence. But Leonard had received said warning, but with her he had left.

Thankful she knew what she was going to have to apologize about, Penny walked to his room. She knocked twice and whispered his name.

"Sheldon…?"

There was no reply, but she did hear crying.

She knocked again. "Sheldon?"

Still no answer. She opened the door anyway, and peeked in. Sheldon was lying on his side on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest. He had one arm wrapped around his waist, the other over his head. His shoulders were shaking.

Penny walked around the bed and sat down on her knees. "I'm sorry, Sheldon. I shouldn't have whistled."

Sheldon unwrapped his arms from his body and looked at her. Tears were staining his cheeks and his blue eyes shone with unshed tears. "People can't be in my room. Get out."

Very carefully, so he could follow her movements, Penny placed her hand on his upper arm. "Sweetie, what's wrong?"

It was a testament of his distress that he didn't shrug her hand of his arm. "What's wrong is that you're in my room."

"Leonard once whistled in front of you," Penny started. "You gave him a warning, but with me you ran away and now you're crying. I was worried for you."

Sheldon now did shrug her arm off of him, turned around and resumed his previous position. "Get out," he whispered, but it had lost the authority tone his voice usually had.

Penny quickly got to her feet, walked around his bed and sat down on the edge. "Not until you tell me what is wrong, sweetie."

Sheldon remained silent.

"I promise that whatever you tell me will remain between you and me," Penny assured him. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. I won't betray your trust."

After almost ten minutes with Penny waiting patiently by his side, Sheldon whispered, "I don't like it when people whistle."

"Why is that, Sheldon?" Penny gently asked.

Sheldon looked at her, and then gently shuffled backwards a little. Penny, not really knowing why he –and even she- was doing this, lay down beside him; on her side, facing him.

"I never expected you to whistle," he said.

"You have my word that I'll never whistle again in your presence Sheldon," Penny said. The promise came easy and honestly. If Sheldon could react this strongly, she knew that there was something truly wrong.

Sheldon reached out and to her shock took her hand in his. Penny just let it happen, Sheldon was never going to initiate touching, so because he did now was a true shock. But Penny realized that even Sheldon, robot-man they always claimed him to be had feelings. And she, Penny, in her ignorance had hurt them.

"Promise you will never reveal what I am about to divulge?" he asked.

"I'll do more than promise, I swear," Penny said.

Sheldon visibly swallowed. Penny knew that he was way out of his comfort zone, but she was holding his hand until he returned to it.

"My father…" he started. "… When I was a child… my father would beat us when he had been drinking. Never my brother George, always me… he said 'I'm ashamed to call you my son, scrawny know-it-all. I'll beat some humility into you yet'."

Penny squeezed his hand. "Oh, Sheldon. I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Sheldon said, a little bit of his normal self emerging. "You were not present, nor did we know each other then."

"I know," Penny said. "What about your mom and Missy? Did he hit them?"

Sheldon nodded. "My mother and me most of time. I know that he has hit Missy twice that I know of. Once I put three stitches just under her hairline."

"You've stitched up your own sister?" Penny interrupted him.

"There is only so many times a member of single family can go to the emergency room without the wrong people starting to ask the wrong questions. Once I read how to do it, the procedure was fairly simple."

Penny was amazed. "How old were you?"

"Nine," he answered casually.

Penny was now really stunt into silence. She suddenly saw him in a different light. Penny realized that almost his entire childhood –until he'd gone off to college when he was twelve years old- had been steeped in violence. It explained why he didn't like fighting. With his eidetic memory it would be like being a child again, and living through it again. She couldn't imagine what it was like. But it still didn't explain the whistling thing.

"We, meaning Missy, my mother and me," Sheldon started, "We always knew when dad would get home inebriated , because he would be… whistling…"

The last word was whispered so quietly that Penny almost missed it. And it all clicked in her head. Sheldon must have realized that she now understood because of her facial expression.

"Yes," he said with a ghost of a smile. "If he was whistling, we knew he would be inebriated, and we would stay clear of him. So…"

"So… now… every time you hear whistling, you remember your dad," Penny said, her voice thick with held back tears of sympathy.

Sheldon just nodded.

"I don't like whistling…" he said after a few minutes of silence. "When you whistled just now, for once it was too much."

Penny, nor Sheldon, did ever bring up the subject of whistling again. Penny never whistled again, ever. Leonard did once, and then he whistled. Penny gave him a strike for it.


End file.
